Trying to figure this whole parenting thing out.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Week 14 Day 3: A stand up guy

Gavin is totally crawling now, textbook style. He's toyed with it before, but now if he's motivated to get to something, he trucks on over on his hands and knees. Mind you, the desired object (usually the cat) can't be too far away or he'll give up. Not that I can blame him. I don't like crawling on my hands and knees. Shit's labor intensive. Walking is the way to go. And Gavin is sadly aware of this. He really wants to do it. He loves, loves, loves pulling himself up on stuff and standing there, scooting (I don't know why they call it scooting. Scooting is what an animal with impacted anal glands does) around said object and even transferring to another nearby object. He breathes quite heavily as he does all of this. And while there are moments of the pure joy of accomplishment on his face, he is quite often looking very serious, very intense. You can see his eyes move from, say, one dresser drawer handle to the next and then see his hand reach out for it. It's like reading his mind. "I have this dresser handle, and there's another dresser handle. I can have this one too now."

I am fairly certain that my mom is giving me an Amazon.com gift certificate for my birthday and I plan to get Gavin this Chicco music and play table thing. As I said, he loves to pull himself up, but then he doesn't usually have anything to do while he's there (unless it's the dresser drawers. He was very excited about finding his shoes in the drawer today and chewed very voraciously on one of his Airwalks). I think he'd really like it. Moreover, I think I'd really like watching him play with it. He's getting more into his toys these days. Things that did not interest him before do now. Understanding cause and effect helps. So now if he has a rattle he will study it and shake it rather than only putting it in his mouth.

Dude still isn't wild about eating anything with texture in it. Likes his food as smooth as possible. We've been giving him some stage 3 baby food from the jar that supposedly has texture, but it really doesn't have much. He'll begrudgingly eat it though. I guess you have to start somewhere. And I can sympathize. There are some foods I just can't eat because of the texture. Oranges, for example. I love the way they taste and love the way they smell, but I can't stand to eat them. Orange juice, however, is fine. It's not something I drink a lot, but I can do it.

Stacy and I took him to the Ferndale Community Center today so he could play in the kids' room. It rained all day so it felt like a good day to get out of the house. I actually thought there would be other kids there but Gavin had the whole room to himself. When we got there the place was a mess. Clearly kids had been there. Toys were all over the place. While Gavin played I tidied up, putting things away and making the place look neat. I am not a fan of messiness. Plus whenever Gavin is the only kid there (it's happened one other time) I always have this fear that the reason no one else is there is because we aren't supposed to be there. So I figured that if I at least clean the place up and leave it much better than how I found it then we'll be square. Gavin liked pulling himself up on the little people chairs. And he dug this bead thing they have there, though when he tried to pull himself up it tipped over. Thankfully Stacy was right there and was able to right the ship so he didn't fall. What he liked most of all was this little tow truck because it had this little piece attached by a string (the tow part) which he was hell bent on putting in his mouth. As Stacy pointed out, the truck had decals on it that said "Police" and then a symbol on the doors that said, "American Police." My best guess is that this toy was not made or designed in this country.

We also took Gavin for a walk, or more accurately, a stroll since he just gets pushed around. It was rainy and it rained on us a little, but we try to take a walk every day. I'd say the family member who liked today's walk the least would be Henri, our poodle. He doesn't like to walk when it's wet outside. He walked way behind us the entire time, there was hardly any slack on his leash. Stacy said he doesn't like the way wet ground feels on his paws. "He's a texture queen like Gavin," she said.

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